Zappa came to mind largely because I'm still not happy with how he's treated by the music media. Here's a guy who changed the face of rock, inspired the greates

Zappa came to mind largely because I'm still not happy with how he's treated by the music media. Here's a guy who changed the face of rock, inspired the greatest band of all time as much as the Beach Boys did (though they get mention), and was a huge figure both in jazz and modern classical music, possibly the best guitar soloist of all time, and makes a label that launches the likes of Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits, and he only gets mention as a "freak" outsider by most sources. The outsider culture in music infuriates me, because the most cutting-edge musicians get less than lip service almost everywhere. Trying to find the cutting edge is still ridiculously hard today: Looking for new music, I have a damned hard time doing it, because the attention is never on what's new. Ahem. Rant over. Velvet Underground is certainly another terrific example.